Chris Gill: Perfect timing for Taylor, Angelelli

Friday

Jun 29, 2012 at 12:01 AMJun 29, 2012 at 12:15 AM

In last year’s Sahlen’s Six Hours of The Glen, Ricky Taylor stepped out of the shadow. Coming into this year’s second leg of the Rolex Series’ triple crown, the 22-year-old son of sports car champion Wayne Taylor has been blinded by the searing spotlight.

Chris Gill

In last year’s Sahlen’s Six Hours of The Glen, Ricky Taylor stepped out of the shadow. Coming into this year’s second leg of the Rolex Series’ triple crown, the 22-year-old son of sports car champion Wayne Taylor has been blinded by the searing spotlight.

After playing a secondary role to his accomplished co-driver Max Angelelli in 2010, the 2011 six-hour classic was his first time qualifying, starting and finishing a Daytona Prototype race. He was flawless, holding off series heavyweight Scott Pruett on a restart with 12 minutes remaining. From there, he led the Sun Trust team to six consecutive podium finishes and two of three victories in the season, placing third in the championship.

“We all knew and saw his capability to that point, but he exceeded what we expected because he basically nailed all of it at The Glen,” Angelelli said. “It was very special and we were all very proud of him.”

The last three rounds of the 2012 championship have been a stark contrast to the fortunes of 11 months ago.

There was a crash exiting the pits at Belle Isle, the team was swept up in another wreck at Mid–Ohio and last weekend at Road America, while trying the scrub the debris from his tires under caution, Taylor spun out while in position to fight for the victory.

“I wish I could take it back. It was so terrible,” said Taylor, who has co-driven to six Grand-Am Rolex Series wins in his last 26 DP starts. “That was my last chance to get all the pickup off the tires. I guess I was being too aggressive in doing that and I lost a little focus and let the car get away from me. It was awful, but I’m so glad we’re going back to Watkins Glen this weekend.”

Any driver who led 128 of 174 laps would be glad. However, there are a couple wrinkles this weekend.

Taylor and Angelelli will be driving the new Corvette DP at The Glen for the first time. The new pride of Chevrolet Racing debuted at the Rolex 24 of Daytona in February and has gone on to claim five of seven races with four different teams. The ‘Vette’s success prompted the sanctioning body to grant the Ford and BMW–powered operations a wider RPM band to produce a little more power, in the hopes of off–setting Corvette’s aerodynamic advantage.

Something clicked, because Pruett and Memo Rojas drove to their first win in nearly one year last weekend at Road America.

This weekend, the defending champs, and the others in the Corvette camp, will have to start from scratch at The Glen. Since the car has never raced, or tested, at the high–speed 3.4–mile permanent road course, there is zero data to start off with.

“What I’ve seen with the 2012 car is that there is not really a logic where we know in advance how we are going to do, whether we will be struggling with any particular problems or whether we will be fast right away,” Angelelli said. “I’m optimistic this weekend because we’ve always been good at Watkins Glen, and that is because of what we have been able to do with the mechanical side of the car. But because we have a new aero package this year, if I look at the races this year, we didn’t necessarily follow a logical trend in that we were surprisingly good on some racetracks, and we were not good on other tracks where I thought we would be good. I’m not 100–percent sure where The Glen fits in with our current aero package.”

This weekend, it’s Angelelli’s turn to close out the race. He and Taylor have been taking turns in that role all season, with mixed results based on the new car, a deeper field in terms of competition and a couple unforced errors.

The drivers are 25 points out of the championship lead in 6th place with six races remaining – including two at The Glen. Wayne Taylor’s team(s) have a staggering record in Schuyler County – four wins, 14 podium finishes and a worst of 12th in 17 starts. Only Pruett’s six wins are better in the Daytona Prototype era.

The timing couldn’t better for the Taylor team.

“This weekend, it’ll be nice to be somewhere we have some confidence and I can go back to somewhere we had such a good year last year, both weekends,” Taylor said. “We hope we can get back to where the car will be fast and make up for my mistakes the last few races. We were the dominant car at both Watkins Glen races last year, but I definitely think it’ll be much more challenging this year.”

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